Going from an unranked team to the Sweet Sixteen, the Syracuse Men’s basketball team has defied this season’s expectations. Out of 17.3 million brackets submitted to ESPN alone, 82 percent of those had Michigan State advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. But Syracuse was able to defeat those odds.

Most people at Jamesville-DeWitt High School can agree that Syracuse has had a good season, even though there have been some bumps in the road. “They didn’t play so well in the beginning, but played better in the actual tournament,” said junior Max Schulman. This year’s tournament has brought many great moments. “Upsetting Michigan State was a great memorable moment,” said senior Marcos Taylor. This game was also Schulman’s favorite but more specifically, it was when sophomore star Tyus Battle’s step back shot to ice the game.

Even with a few mistakes, Syracuse was still able to make up for some of the bad losses earlier in the season and move forward. “It’s been a pretty rough start to the season, but the NCAA tournament is all that matters, and it’s great we could make it there,” said sophomore Jacob Barry.

There’s no consensus among fans about which Syracuse player was the best, but the most popular names that have appeared are Frank Howard, Tyus Battle, and Oshae Brissett. At the beginning of the season, many believed Tyus Battle was bound to leave for the draft but some people think he will stay. Some students, like freshman Thomas Sabatino, think that Brissett will leave after this season, especially after the numbers he is putting up in this year’s tournament.

Although the team’s offense has struggled at times this year, their defense has been a problem for their opponents to handle. They have limited teams that normally score over 80 points, to just 50. In their round of 32 game against Michigan State, they held the Spartans to 53 points while they usually average 80. Also, against TCU, they only scored 52 points which is very low compared to their average of 82.

Although this season has been exciting, students and staff are even more excited to see what next year will turn out like. Syracuse has already landed two ESPN top 100 recruits, Darius Bazley (9) and Jalen Carey (37) as well as coach Jim Boeheim’s son, Buddy Boeheim, a former J-DHS student. Junior Adam Honis believes that Buddy will eventually be the best player in college basketball. Many fans have high hopes for the end of this season and next season. “It should be back to back title runs,” said Schulman.